Monday, July 01, 2002

Lynn B. points to an article at a site run by Ahmed Bouzid and asks if his translation of an article from Yediot Aharonot is authentic.

No, Bouzid's translation (which suggests that significant numbers of Israeli kids spew vitriol similar to Palestinians) is selective, tendentious, and inaccurate. It slices up paragraphs from the original and assembles them into new paragraphs.

The original article says in the second paragraph that the letters (which were mailed to reserve soldiers and included some nasty anti-Arab comments) came from 7-10th graders in 2 specific schools associated with the national-religious movement ("Aderet" in Bat-Yam and "Maalot Neriah" in Bnei-Brak).

There were "tens" of such letters - this was omitted by Bouzid to create the impression that there were more (and since Yediot is a melodramatic tabloid, it's reasonable to assume that the letters quoted were the most lurid).

The "Jewish Action Center" in the Bouzid translation is the "Center for Jewish Pluralism" in the original; and Bouzid omitted text that included responses from various education officials.

I'll try to do a full translation and comparison soon. Bouzid also links to two largely fictional articles by Chris Hedges.

Update: Stephan Sharkansky has more this here.

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